WAC assisted with recruiting

Friday

Sep 6, 2013 at 12:01 AM

By LOLA LAUBHEIM as told to ABBY WEINGARTEN

Lola Laubheim volunteered for the Women's Army Corps in 1942 after graduating from Goucher College. The Baltimore, Md., native drove a truck and performed recruiting shows throughout the United States during World War II. After her military service, she became an elementary school teacher in Baltimore. Now 91 and a widow to her husband of 66 years, Charles, Laubheim lives in the Fountains at Lake Pointe Woods retirement community.

'The war had just started and everything was about the war. I got a job working on the ration board in Baltimore to ration meat, shoes and sugar, but it was not exciting enough. I decided to join the WACs.

I was sent to Daytona Beach for basic training. One day I got a call from the commanding officer there, saying I was the kind of person they wanted to represent the WACs, so they were going to put me in recruiting. I was sent to Fort Des Moines, and that's where I got my real basic training. After that, I was sent to the Second Service Command, which was New York, Delaware and New Jersey, and I was going to work in recruiting.

In order to do the job, I had to learn to drive a 2.5-ton truck, and I'm small. The purpose of learning to drive the truck was that we were going to take this recruiting show to New York, Delaware and New Jersey. We were going to carry the people in the show and the props in the truck.

In the town, they would put us up in the Masonic hall and we'd give a parade and march and put on our show.

One song we sang was: 'I used to pose as a model at Saks, but now I go as the pride of the WACs.'

Another song was: 'We're the WACs, we're the WACs, we're the girls, soldier girls, minus frills, minus curls, as pretty as a picture in our suits made of tan. We answer the call of the man with the gun. He's our uncle, salute him, hip hooray and three cheers. We're the WACs, we're the WACs, we're the girls in the khaki, and all out for Uncle Sam.'

We went around for six months doing these shows, but then Col. Oveta Culp Hobby, who was the head of the WACs, said it was not the job of the WACs to sing and dance. So everyone was broken up and sent to different places. I was sent to New York City and they didn't know what to do with me, really. I'd go into a department store and hand out fliers at a booth. Then, in Brooklyn, I tested recruits. I was sent all by myself to Binghamton, N.Y., to do recruiting, and I drove a Jeep and went into the farms and talked to the farmers.

After I got out of the service, I got my graduate degree at Adelphi University while my children were still little, and I became a teacher and taught elementary school in Baltimore until I retired.

The schools weren't integrated back then. When they did integrate, they asked for volunteers to teach in the black schools and I volunteered. There was racism on both sides and there were riots. It was dangerous, but I believed in it. Being there took more guts than the Army."

Abby Weingarten may be contacted via email at Abby_Weingarten@yahoo.com.